CHRISTMAS SPECIAL - all of last weeks action together!
(Rate this article)
Loading ...Email It!
Well Christmas is round the corner and off late i have been very very bad! Because i haven’t posted much on WATblog since last four days.. The reason for that was that as an entrepreneur i was busy attending the TIE Summit. The TIE Summit was a wonderful experience and i got the opportunity to meet the father of Information technology in India Narayan Murthy! So i guess all WATblog readers can forgive me for disappearing for a few days.
Well i thought how do i catch up on all of the last weeks news? So the idea of a christmas special came to mind! (isn’t innovation a hallmark of a good entrepreneur? ;0)
So here is a post which has all the weeks news togethers so that incase like me you were at the TIE Summit or are planning a holiday for christmas you can read this post at liesure as its going to be on top for three days!
Well for starters lots of money has been pouring into the web, advertising and technology world. So here is a low down on all those internet and technology startups that got funded recently!
MONEY MONEY VERY FUNNY!
Cleartrip.com raises 8 million $ from DAG ventures and existing investor Sherpalo Ventures while Makemytrip.com raises 13 million $ from Helion Ventures, Sierra Ventures and existing investors, SB Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF).
Well looking at this competition in the online travel space i can only say that i hope atleast one of these companies make some margins at the end of the day because the way the money is flowing i hope atleast one of them comes up with a sustainable differentiating factor other than low price so that we can see some real internal growth drivers for an online travel company rather than just external growth factors which are currently benefiting all the players!
Mercantila an online retailer raises $22.5 million and online learning company TutorVista gets $7 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Matrix partners invests an undisclosed amount in Four Interactive
Well both mercantila and tutorvista are Internet companies catering mainly to customers in the United States so while mercantila is a an online collection of specialty stores tutorvista offers online tutoring to students in the US and UK.
Four interactive is an interesting company only because one can see no visible reason why matrix would invest in a start up which has made no waves as yet! Well something up their sleeves which obviously bloggers like me still don’t know.
Seedfund funds its first company Carwale.com for an undisclosed sum and acquires 30% equity.
I was speaking to a startup founder who said that for seed funding 15 to 20% is the right dilution of stake so 30% sounds a little high but i guess the startup founder Mohit Dubey knows better. I myself have had a similar experience with seed funding recently as i rejected a seed funding offer which required me to dilute 40% of my company. My sincere advice to all startup owners build build build!!! till you can self sustain and revenues start showing and you are breaking even and even looking at profitability as that should give you a lot more confidence to deal with VC’s investor and angels. Also it will help in diluting less % of equity as more equity dilution means less rewards at the end of a hard earned journey called entrepreneurship so keep the equity as close to your heart as you can and BUILD YOUR COMPANY!
THE ONLINE EXPANDS OFFLINE!
Zapak.com to open 600 gaming cafe’s in next 3 years and Jaaydaad.com is looking at 600 franchisee offices.
Anil Ambani-owned Reliance ADA group will open over 600 gaming cafes across the country in the next 2 to 3 years and target about 50 million subscribers by 2010. For this, the company plans to invest Rs 450 crore in the next three years.
Online property consultant, Jaaydaad.com, is taking up an offline network expansion as it plans to strike deals worth Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) by March next year. The company, with projects worth around Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion), is taking the franchising route to open 600 property shops across the country. The company will contribute 20 per cent of the total investment of Rs 120 crore (Rs 1.20 billion) required to open these 600 shops and the rest would be made by the franchisees.
Going offline with cafe’s and offices makes a lot of sense as offline activity really affects brand value and adds credibility as people introduced to your brand and log on to your site which they may log off from if they were routed through only an online ad. The real reason is the amount of popups and spam sites which affects the trust factor of a user about an online ad and hence offline activity gives confidence especially for people targetting traditional users. Hence shaadi point which is being rolled out by shaadi and jaaydaad franchisee makes a lot of sense!
FINALLY AN ONLINE CHRISTMAS GAME FOR ALL OUR READERS! HAVE FUN AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! HO HO HO! 
Loading ...
there are other good auto sites in India (and better) like http://www.BharathAutomobiles.com